Young Latina enjoys seat of power

For months, Sonya Medina couldn't help but smile as she raced to business meetings or even just looked out the window of her new office.

Every day, she had to remind herself that what she was doing, what she was seeing, was real.

"Every movement I make," said Medina, 25, "everything I'm doing right now, is really a part of the history-making process."

Medina, an aide to first lady Laura Bush, spends her days shuttling from her office in the East Wing of the White House to meetings with presidential aides in the West Wing. Gazing out her big picture window, she can see the president's helicopter settle onto the South Lawn.

Medina's parents, who live in San Antonio, had been pinching themselves, too.

Until the morning of Sept. 11.

Armando Medina, a petroleum geologist, bolted for home, where he and his wife sat before their big-screen television, eyes wide, mouths agape, staring at images of jetliners ramming into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and bright orange flames shooting out of Pentagon windows.

The Medinas got some measure of relief from their daughter's phone call. She was safe, they knew, but she was crying and did not know where she was. She had been whisked away with the first lady and other aides to an undisclosed location. Minutes seemed like hours until she called back in the late afternoon from her apartment. She was at home, and she was OK.

"Being with the Secret Service and Mrs. Bush, you'd think they're going to take care of her," her father said. "But you still worry."

Nothing, however, could ever shake her parents' support of whatever route Medina chooses in life. "If that's what she wants, then that's what I want for her, definitely," Lupita Medina said. "We're still very much behind the administration. I support the president, and Mrs. Bush has been wonderful."

Years ago, they couldn't have guessed their eldest daughter would pick politics; she never expressed an interest as a kid.

"It was definitely clear that she was very driven and that she would accomplish whatever she set out to do," said Natalie Solis, a classmate at the Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio who now works for Latina magazine in New York City. "Sonya is an incredibly focused person. She doesn't let anything get in her way."

A start as a `gofer'

At Texas A&M University, Medina had an internship with former President George Bush, the president's father, at his Houston office. For nearly three years, she made the 90-minute drive from College Station to Houston--twice a week--to open mail and respond to letters.

It was "your basic intern-gofer type of stuff," but the experience solidified Medina's budding conservative beliefs while winning her some friends in high places. She went to Columbia University in New York to get a master's in public health, but after graduation she was led to Washington by a growing desire to shape public policy.

The Republican National Committee quickly pulled her aboard. With the 2000 presidential campaign heating up, Medina became a senior health-care analyst on a team conducting "opposition research."

Medina helped scrutinize then-Vice President Al Gore's proposals for Medicare, prescription drugs and the uninsured, "extract the weak points" and highlight them for reporters and for politicians campaigning for then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

When Bush became president, Medina landed in the Office of the First Lady. Now, as deputy director of projects, she sets up meetings between Mrs. Bush and members of Congress, non-profit groups and other organizations. She helps coordinate major events such as the first-ever National Book Festival.

"We're thrilled to have her here," said her boss, director of projects Anne Heiligenstein.

Medina recently returned to San Antonio in her official role. She accompanied Mrs. Bush when she and the president appeared at the American Legion convention in late August. Medina got to see her parents and sleep in her old twin bed in the room she used to share with her little sister.

She always returns to warm hugs from friends and teachers.

"For young Hispanic women to see her now, what she's doing, and see the role she's playing as a Hispanic woman, I mean it's incredible," said Anne Mock, one of Medina's teachers at Incarnate Word.

"Even if they don't agree with her particular views on political issues, to look at her and see what she's achieved and where she's going in life, it says, `Hey, I can do it too,"' said Solis, who admits to an occasional heated political discussion with her old friend.

Political differences

Medina expects at least a little taunting, with Hispanics traditionally voting for Democrats. And she admits to tiptoeing around the issue with some relatives: "We don't discuss politics at Thanksgiving dinner, let's just put it that way!" she said, giggling.

A striking woman with almond-shaped eyes and jet-black hair striding through crowds in a sharp pantsuit, pearl necklace and matching earrings, Medina already has the air of a politician. When she goes to receptions, like the one following the recent state dinner with Mexican President Vicente Fox, "the million-dollar question is, do you plan to run?"

She laughs it off, recalling that she once told a friend, "Politics is just not for me."